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Today was awesome. The game started with a double bang. First, the Bruins and the duck boats made an encore appearance to present the Stanley Cup to Boston sports fans. Second, the Sox a crazy good first inning, jumping out 6-0 on the Brewers. Wakefield got the Win and we finished 12-3. AGon hit a triple for his 1000th career hit! AND we watch the USA Gold Cup game on our phone and got to watch that win too! Also, Ray Allen was at the game, supporting the B’s and the Sox with his fam! What a town! In the 9th inning, they made an announcement that anyone who was interested was welcome on to come down onto the field after the game!!! It was a great day!

We rented a ZipCar and headed down to Foxboro to watch the World Champion Spanish team play the USA soccer team. It was a friendly and, as the Gold Cup starts in a few days, it became apparent the USA Powers That Be decided to use the opportunity to throw the USA younguns in to the big dogs and see who could play the big boys. And the answer was… none of them. The first half was pathetic. Luckily for the record attending crowd (largest crowd in New England for a soccer match) they subbed in Clint Dempsey and Bradley and all the old seasoned pros at the half. It was fun seeing Tim Howard and Dempsey and Altidore and Guch and the Spanish team though. (Donovan was a no show.) The game itself was a 4-0 rout. But we enjoyed seeing a world class soccer players playing at Gillette. Our seats were amazing! Row 2 – right next to Taylor Twellmen and Alexi Lalas! The American Outlaws section was also right next to us – and they are lots of fun!

All of our South Africa 2010 adventure posts have now been appropriately postdated – it has gotten tiring to write datelines for each post and as we continue to catch up to the present day – we’ll just post date the photos to the right day!

The 2010 World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands was just days after we returned to the States. We carefully considered our options for the best venue to watch the Final and decided on Boston’s FanFest at the House of Blues. Not only were our vuvuzelas allowed – they had some for sale there too!

We were really good at blowing our vuvuzelas. It was obvious that we had authentic training. We had a great time. With our South Africa gear, “real” vuvulzalas, and awesome vuvuzela skills we met a South African who thought we, too, were from South Africa. We enjoyed watching the game with a bunch of soccer fans and it helped to alleviate the sadness from the end of our vacation, but it did not compare to the awesome atmosphere of the games in South Africa. Additionally, we were concerned for the soccer withdrawal Josh was certain to go through. We picked up some tickets for Football at Fenway as soon as possible to help mitigate the future depression.

It was a good game, but it looked as though the Dutch were outmatched from the start.

Lansdowne Street was full of fun revelers when we left the FanFest (but no Long Street). As we walked home, we could hear vuvuzelas and followed the call over to the Christian Science Center Reflecting Pool! It was full of Spanish fans and revelers – literally full. They had jumped in the pool (some stripped to their knickers) and were singing Spanish football songs and doing fun dances. It was a lot of fun!

When we got back from the Cape of Good Hope, we made our way back downtown. We had good seats in The Dubliner like the previous USA win, but it didn’t have the same “vibe” so we decided to try our luck at finding a new locale and more American comrades. We walked up and down Long Street, gathering a greater nucleus of American fans each trip until we were in a group of about 25 or so. As a group we decided to head to the Purple Turtle (which we had previously heard was a bit shady). We paid a small cover. Inside we watched a great game with lots of Americans. By the end of the night, the USA had lost a game and we were down a South African cell phone. Come to find out a pickpocket had worked the whole crowd and scored a few wallets and phones that evening.

We were pretty dejected as we had to walk the length of Long Street to get to our car through super happy and singing South Africans (they were cheering for any African team at this point). One favorite though came from a European fan (can’t recall which country though) who yelled at us: “What do you say now, USA?” I just replied, “Next World Cup”, with a wry smile. This immediately made them smile and say, “Yeah, us too.”

After driving back to the city center, we parked at Claire’s Dad’s firm on Long Street. While we were waiting for everyone who had tickets to the game to gather, the two of us headed to an English Pub, 3 Lions, just around the corner for a few pints while we watched the first halves of the Slovakia-Italy and Paraguay-New Zealand games. After we all met up on Long Street, we walked the Fan Mile to the stadium, stopping halfway there at Lazari at the Cape Quarter for dinner, care of Malcolm. After a fun dinner with good people and conversation, we walked the whole Fan Mile (a lot of Dutch fans!). We want to note here that the Fan Mile in Cape Town is much longer than one mile.

Once we were in the stadium we found that we had amazing seats! We were right at the yellow corner flag, and two rows up from the railing. Where we sat wasn’t as loud as the Soccer City stadium, but we were right at the corner where two goals were scored – and the subsequent celebrations were had. Once again we were rooting for the African team, but most people in attendance were pretty stoked that Netherlands won 2-1. We enjoyed seeing Eto’o and Robben play. Josh spilled beer (a full bottle) on our camera bag due to an exciting PK in our corner – luckily Jeannette had the camera out on her lap at the time, so no harm done – but the great seats only served to heighten excitement. Josh had also practiced his vuvuzela skills and was one of the better blowers in our section.

We all met back up for some wine to sit and recap the game together. Jeannette had started to feel a bit sick for the last couple days and by the end of this long day, her cold had come on quite strong. Luckily one of the people we had just met for dinner, and again postgame, was a nice doctor. She offered some advice, and prescriptions if desired. Jeannette decided to hold out for a bit longer (bad idea) but did snag a box of kleenex that was gone by the end of trip, along with a second full box.

By the time we made it home, we were feeling peckish and still pretty riled up and excited about the game so we stayed up and ate snacks with Claire and her parents, Carol and Richard, before hitting the hay.